When analyzing issues, how do we know whether we are putting them in the right context such as material or spiritual?
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Thank you So, how do we know Whether we are putting things In the right context Because sometimes Material context and spiritual context May be opposite also Yes See, basically As I said The most constructive context Is that Which enables us to function In the best possible way So Sometimes the material Spiritual categorization Is Is too broad To be helpful So I prefer to see it as What is material And what is spiritual Ultimately Spiritual Is the attitude of service Material Is the attitude of Exploitation Of self-centeredness So, if I am interacting With someone Even if that person Be a materialist Now, if I have Attitude of service Ok, how best Can I help this person How best can I May be if I am interacting In a devotional context How can I Help this person Take one step towards Krishna So, in general Material consciousness Means That as soon as We see a person We think What can this person Do for me Spiritual consciousness Means as soon as We see a person We think What can I do for this person So, it is more Service-centered And if we have This functional This understanding Service-centered Then What might Normally seen as material Might also be spiritual Because if something Is simply a material interaction But it furthers Our service to Krishna Or it creates A favorable atmosphere For the service to Krishna Then It is It is unfavorable It can also be called Broadly spiritual Now, having said that With respect to our decisions In general This is You know Our opinions We all have opinions We all have conceptions We all have assumptions It is good to Hold our opinions Lightly Not tightly That means Ok, this is Yeah, this is my understanding And This is the understanding We all need some understanding To function We can’t live without Any understanding But, sometimes Reality surprises us So When we When we choose A particular frame To perceive something Then If that frame If that frame Helps us move forward That’s positive If it is not Then we need to Change the framing So If Like, it happened that When the devotees First time did a Rathyatra In London Now, the devotees Had done a big Rathyatra In USA And the devotees Went to London And decided to do a Bigger cart But somehow They kept the Wheels And the structure Of the same size And then When the Rathyatra Was about to start It went for a Short distance And the Rath Tumbled And the devotees Had done a lot Of publicity It was a fiasco And the devotees Wrote to Prabhupada And said Prabhupada Did this Rath Collapse because Of our poor devotion And Prabhupada Replied No It collapsed Because of Your poor engineering So Now in that case There is no need To get into this Oh no Because we are not Sincere devotees That’s why it fell down Well Whether you are Sincere devotees Or not The Rath Has to be Engineered properly Isn’t it? So Prabhupada Framed it in a Very practical context And the next time The Rathyatra Worked out very well So We can say that In the Mahabharata It is said that There are three Broad frames Or three Broad factors For considering Right and wrong action It is Intent Content And consequence Why am I doing this? Intention is important Then Content What exactly am I doing? And then Consequence Okay What is the result Of doing this? So Say Sometimes a doctor Gives a prescribed Particular medicine Technically speaking That medicine For one disease You can have Ten appropriate medicines Ten medicines Which are okay But Sometimes That patient Might have Some background Case history Because One medicine Turns out to be Contraindicative And it has A contrary effect Then what happens? The consequence is this This was not The best medicine Change the medicine So sometimes We have a book Which tells us the content For this disease You take this But the consequence Tells us that It doesn’t work So we may have to Revise based on the consequence And Especially with respect to Interpersonal dealings Intention is also important Sometimes we Have a intention Somebody is doing something wrong And our intention is to help them Do the right thing And so we give them Some constructive feedback But Although our intention is good If our manner is not very good If our way of speaking Is not very good Then that might alienate people Or sometimes Even we speak also gently But still That the person Takes it offensive Takes it Feels offended by that Next time Maybe I am not the right person To do this So Intent Content And consequence If broadly we see If I am putting this in this frame Why am I putting it like this? Is it because I like this person? That’s why I am always giving them The benefit of doubt Is it because I dislike this person So I always keep doubting this person You see somebody eating a lot If we If we don’t like that person We will say Such a glutton And if we like that person He must have been hungry No It is the same activity But we can put it into different frames So we have to look at our intent also Did I answer your question? Yes Thank you